How to change download location in Windows 11 if it occupies too much space on the C drive? You can learn how to move it and downloaded apps to another drive.
Windows 11 creates certain libraries on its C disk by default to handle its components. Libraries or folders in this context refer to Music, Images, Downloads, Desktop, and so on, with some being more often used than others.
This is the case with the Downloads folder, which stores all downloads contents from websites or apps; nonetheless, this is a parameter that is always utilized in Windows systems; it may create some difficulties if we have too many downloads, and they influence the capacity in the C drive.
What’s more, if the C drive loses too much free space, the PC performance will be affected because the C drive holds many system files for running OS.
Therefore, many users wonder how to change Microsoft store download location in Windows 11. In this guide, we will show you how to move Download folders and how to move your downloaded programs to another location.
Step 1. Open the File Explorer; right-click on the Downloads folder and select the “Properties” option.
Step 2. Select the Location tab, then select the Move button.
Step 3. Navigate through File Explorer to choose your preferred download location, then click Select Folder.
Step 4. After you choose a location, select Apply. Then Windows 11 will then ask you if you want to move all files from the old location to the new one.
Note: If you currently have nothing of importance in your Windows 11 Downloads folder, choose No. If you have downloaded applications or folders recently that may be a necessary component of some applications, or you just want to play it safe, select “Yes”.
Select OK after Windows 11 moves your files.
Honestly, we don’t suggest users change the “My Documents” or “My Downloads” location because once the storage directory has been changed, the relevant programs or other tools might not boot or run successfully. Unless you also change the storage path one by one, otherwise you cannot make sure all moved programs in the Download can run normally.
Thus, to easily and successfully move Download, we recommend you AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional help you. It’s a disk and partition manager specifically designed for Windows users (supporting Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP). With its “App Mover” function, users can move folders and installed programs to another drive. What's more, this tool also provides "PC Cleaner" function to clear junk files and "Delete Large Files" feature to remove large data files to reclaim more free space on your disk.
▶ Move Download to another drive
Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant. Right-click the target drive and select "APP Mover".
Step 2. In the new window, click “Move Folder”.
Step 3. Select the folder you want to move. Choose the location drive under the window, and click “Move”.
Step 4. You will see a pop-up message to confirm forcibly closing running applications when moving starts. Click "OK" to begin the process.
▶ Move installed programs from the Downloads folder
If you look in the Downloads folder, you may find various programs, such as games or other apps; nevertheless, many programs take up more space than those files require. As a result, transferring those apps may be a better option than changing the folder itself.
Step 2. Click “App Mover”.
Step 3. In the new window, there’s a partition list with the number and size of installed programs. Select one partition that you want to move applications from and click "Next".
Step 4. In the next window, select the applications you want to move and select the target location, then click "Move".
Step 5. In the pop-up window, please confirm forcibly closing running applications when moving starts. Click "OK" to begin the process.
Step 6. In the main console, click "Apply" on the toolbar to commit the partition copy.
Note: Please do not move or remove files in the source or destination directories to ensure that the applications execute properly.
If you don’t know how to change where Downloads go, don’t worry, you can choose a suitable solution from this post to securely change Download location in Windows 11.
AOMEI Partition Assistant is a reliable tool for users with various needs to manage their Windows devices. Besides the mover features, it can also clone disk, migrate OS only, MBR/GPT disk conversion (without data loss), change file system between NTFS and FAT32, etc.
What’s more, it also has the Server Edition for Windows Server 2022/2019/2016/2012(R2)/2008(R2)/2003.